The Alabama Crimson Tide may not be the "worst" team in the 2025/2026 College Football Playoff field by ESPN's Bill Connelly's criteria -- that honor goes to Jon Sumrall's Tulane Green Wave, and the James Madison Dukes are the second-worst -- but they're objectively the least deserving.
Connelly acknowledged that the CFP selection committee did them a "massive favor" by including them in the second-ever 12-team field over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and BYU Cougars despite having more losses than both and not being bumped down in the rankings despite BYU getting penalized for the same circumstance.
"Alabama basically earned its playoff spot in October, beating Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri and Tennessee to craft a dynamite résumé," Connelly prefaced before saying, "But due primarily to increasing numbers of offensive mistakes, the Tide's form slipped dramatically. The committee did them a massive favor by completely ignoring poor late performances against Auburn (narrow win) and Georgia (blowout loss). Will Alabama reward the committee for its faith?"
Good for Connelly going against his corrupt employer, which acted in its own interest to adversely affect the revenue of several programs across the country to boost their golden goose/ESPN property via the SEC's media rights deal with the World Wide Leader in Sports.
Bad for the sport that the Tide are being given a favorable path to the CFP title game that avoids a rubber match with UGA and a showdown with the Ohio State Buckeyes, probably the most talented team in the field, until the finals.
ESPN accused of controlling CFP process to favor teams like Alabama
Former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn believes ESPN executives intentionally tainted the CFP field to protect the SEC, with last year's CFP field proving that point with the Dawgs and Tennessee Volunteers.
"This entire process is controlled by ESPN and Disney. And just to compare it to the NFL — because that’s where college football is going, it’s more of a professionalized model — what you have is an NFL that controls all of it. And they kind of say, ‘Hey, we decide who gets access on this and who doesn’t,’ it’s entirely different with college football. This is all an ESPN creation, a Disney creation, so I think that’s where they think there’s a big sense of bias," Quinn said the "Sturgotz and Company" show.
"I mean, let’s just go back before the season. [ESPN] talked about the committee changing the criteria in how they evaluate schedules, because what did we have last year in the playoff? Only three SEC teams and they all got stomped for the most part, besides Texas, that at least made its way to the semifinal round. And, by the way, barely made it there."
It's hard not to feel how Quinn feels after seeing the Tide make this year's CFP two Sundays ago.